Local analysis: Sam Popkin on Nevada

Romney and his steady operation contrast with unorthodox Gingrich

Sam Popkin is a political-science professor at UC San Diego. He is the author of the forthcoming book “The Candidate: How to Win — and Hold — the White House.” This is his take on the Nevada caucuses, provided to U-T San Diego:

A good candidate and a good campaign is better than a mercurial candidate with giant PAC money. Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino executive supporting former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, is willing to spend anything he can to back Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A lot more of this is going to happen and it might be that caucuses are how the party fights back.

PAC money isn’t as useful in a caucus as it is in a wide-open election so we would expect if the PAC money continues that more parties use caucuses. That said, the PAC money is very valuable on advertising but it doesn’t help candidates that can’t run a campaign well.

When Gingrich’s entire staff bailed on him in June, he later said “My biggest mistake was hiring a traditional staff for my innovative approach to leadership.” But that had him unable to be consistent or to plan ahead.

People are coming around to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. All the people who had dreams of Prince Charming are coming to say, “He’s over the bar.” And that’s happening in every state so far. He’s not turning off people like a George McGovern in ‘72 or a Barry Goldwater in ‘64.

In Michigan we will really see how strong or weak a candidate he is. We will how much of the “Romney” pull there still is.

I have been surprised so far that Republican turnout is not higher on average than it usually is. In ‘92 and again in 2008, Democratic turnout was very high. There was a lot of energy in the air that those were important years.

The number of candidates who avoided the race told you it was a tough year to be a Republican. The slightly better economic news, we’ll see how it plays in terms of the antipathy toward President Obama.

… What Romney has been saying is extremely calibrated: “Obama wants to make us like Europe” and “I don’t care about the poor.” Both are designed to say, “I am more for the middle class than he will ever be.” He was asked about it again and explained saying, “the poor have a safety net, it’s the middle class we have to worry about and we can’t do it like Europe.”

Those are two very carefully calibrated statements, I suspect. I hypothesize.